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Our relationship with groundwater is bipolar. Increasingly, we depend on it for our very survival, both in developed and developing nations. However, our urban and industrial activities involve routine and detrimental impacts to the quality of our groundwater reserves. The science of ground¬water quality is therefore paramount to underpin successful and sustainable management of this precious resource. GQ07 focused on a range of urban and industrial groundwater quality issues, including:
- major instances of groundwater contamination and consequent human impact,
- emerging chemicals of concern and the ability of the environment to assimilate them,
- new contamination assessment, characterization and remediation techniques,
- data integration and analysis for decision making,
- development of water management policy and controls,
- groundwater quality transformations near receiving environments.
The research papers published here, by scientists and water professionals from around the globe, form a valuable summary of the state of knowledge in these areas. Key topics are arsenic contamination, management of radio¬active sites, non-aqueous phase liquids, biogeochemical and isotopic processes, land-use influences, surface water–groundwater interaction, and the regulation and protection of groundwater supplies. |